In recent years, the use of mobile technologies has steadily increased for both business and personal uses. Mobile telephones are commonly used, and many people employ personal information management (“PIM”) devices or palmtop computers to manage their schedule, contacts, financial information and other data. Such devices are particularly useful for employees whose job responsibilities require them to travel. Some businesses encourage such employees to periodically connect with their enterprise information processing environment through the wireless devices to increase responsiveness and productivity. The mobile periodic connections foster communication between employees and improve the timeliness of collected data through synchronization processes between the mobile devices and the enterprise.
The growing proliferation of wireless enabled personal digital assistants (“PDA's”) mobile e-mail devices and notebook PC's has encouraged wireless carriers to offer transmission of not only voice, but also data signals to/from mobile wireless devices. While the integration of these wireless devices into an enterprise information processing environment promotes increased productivity and efficiency, such integration may also result in increased threats to security and privacy of the information stored within and transmitted to/from such mobile devices.
Businesses employing mobile wireless devices which may be connected to the enterprise expect certain benefits to flow from the use of such devices. Such benefits, for example, may include the ability for laptop computers to be wirelessly connected to enable work to be done from virtually anywhere. Another benefit of wireless connectivity is the flexible access to business processes. Yet another benefit of wireless connectivity is the ability to receive appropriate alerts and messages on the mobile device in order to carry out required job functions with improved efficiency.
In addition to the benefits of wireless connectivity, businesses employing connectable wireless devices face certain challenges. One of the challenges, for example, is the challenge to adequately protect the information on wireless devices to ensure that confidential business and personal information is not lost or stolen. Another challenge is the real-time synchronization of information to ensure accuracy and consistency.
In order to limit the security and privacy threats associated with the connection of mobile devices to the enterprise, some businesses operate two separate information processing environments: one for wired devices and a second for wireless devices. Businesses maintaining two distinct environments lose the benefits of integration and synchronization that may be enjoyed by those operating a combined environment.
A second prior art solution to the integration of wireless devices into an enterprise information processing environment is to run in a hybrid mode in which separate dedicated resources for both wired and wireless devices are maintained. Employing such separate resources in a combined environment often results in incompatibility between devices and/or weakened security.
Accordingly, a need exists for a system and method for managing wireless devices in an enterprise information processing environment that enables integration and synchronization of the wireless devices while protecting the security and privacy of the data on connected devices, whether wired or wireless.